As a straight ally and member of the API community, I know that marriage equality matters deeply to the Asian Pacific Islander (API) community. Nothing is more important to Asian Americans than family, and families headed by same-sex couples are very much part of our community.

Many API community members are at the forefront of the fight to secure marriage for same-sex couples. For example, Asian-American same-sex couples and their children serve as leading plaintiffs in lawsuits seeking the freedom to marry in California, Washington, and Oregon. Earlier this year, Judge Doris Ling-Cohan authored a landmark decision striking down New York’s law banning access to marriage for same-sex couples. San Francisco Assessor Mabel Teng played a pivotal role in the historic marriages that took place at San Francisco City Hall in 2004. And many Asian Americans were among the over 8,000 lesbian and gay people who married in San Francisco. The API community simply wants its LGBT children, siblings and parents to have the same legal protection and recognition for their families that everyone else enjoys.

API same-sex couples and their children make up part of the LGBT community harmed by marriage discrimination. A new UCLA study found that California has the largest population of API same-sex couples in the nation. One in 10 same-sex couples in California include at least one API individual and 55 percent of API same-sex couples are raising children who deserve the protections that civil marriage protections would afford for their families.

The struggle for equal marriage rights is nothing new to Asian Americans. In her eloquent speech in favor of marriage equality on floor of the California Assembly last week, Assemblymember Judy Chu outlined the terrible history of discrimination against Asian Americans seeking to marry the person of their choice regardless of race. Assemblymember Chu explained how the California Legislature in 1880 voted to prohibit Chinese Americans from marrying whites in "an hysterical backlash" against Chinese-American workers. Chu quoted John F. Miller, who later became a U.S. Senator: "Were the Chinese to amalgamate at all with our people … the result of that amalgamation would be … a mongrel of the most detestable that has ever afflicted the earth." Chu said: "I do not want that same kind of marriage hysteria to be leveled against other human beings in the state of California."

The API community played a critical historical role in fighting for marriage equality for interracial couples. After the California Supreme Court ruled that the ban on interracial marriage did not apply to Filipino Americans because they were not "Mongolians," the California Legislature deliberately passed, and Governor Earl Warren signed, legislation expanding the interracial ban to "Malays" to ensure that all Asian Pacific Islander Americans were unable to marry whites. That law and Governor Warren’s actions now stand in infamy. Someday soon, the 1976 legislation excluding same-sex couples from marriage that AB 849 seeks to repeal, will also stand in infamy. The only question is whether Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will stand for equality and sign AB 849 or whether he will stand for exclusion and veto it.

Asian Americans recognize equal access to marriage as a civil right of free people. The California API community knows the critical importance of protecting civil rights, especially in light of the internment of Japanese Americans in the 1940s, immigration exclusion laws, and other attacks on API’s civil liberties. In 1994, the Japanese American Citizens League became the first non-gay organization after the American Civil Liberties Union to support marriage equality for same-sex couples. United States Transportation Secretary and then Congressman Norman Mineta, one the nation’s earliest advocates for same-sex marriage equality, summed it up as follows: "a threat to anybody’s civil rights is a threat to the civil rights of all Americans." And in the words of Assemblymember Chu just last week: "Just as humans have passed unjust marriage laws, humans can undo them." Indeed, we must undo these discriminatory marriage laws so that we can protect all California families.

Victor Hwang is managing attorney of Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach, the largest social justice law firm serving the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities of the Greater Bay Area.